The Global Plankton Database: an inventory and data from the Former Soviet Union expeditions

At present time, there is a lack of knowledge on the interannual climate-related variability of zooplankton communities of the tropical Atlantic, central Mediterranean Sea, Caspian Sea, and Aral Sea, due to the absence of appropriate databases. In the mid latitudes, the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) is the dominant mode of atmospheric fluctuations over eastern North America, the northern Atlantic Ocean and Europe. Therefore, one of the issues that need to be addressed through data synthesis is the evaluation of interannual patterns in species abundance and species diversity over these regions in regard to the NAO. The database has been used to investigate the ecological role of the NAO in interannual variations of mesozooplankton abundance and biomass along the zonal array of the NAO influence. Basic approach to the proposed research involved: (1) development of co-operation between experts and data holders in Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, UK, and USA to rescue and compile the oceanographic data sets and release them on CD-ROM, (2) organization and compilation of a database based on FSU cruises to the above regions, (3) analysis of the basin-scale interannual variability of the zooplankton species abundance, biomass, and species diversity.

Global cooling during the Eocene Oligocene Transition

About 34 million years ago, Earth's climate shifted from a relatively ice-free world to one with glacial conditions on Antarctica characterized by substantial ice sheets. How Earth's temperature changed during this climate transition remains poorly understood, and evidence for Northern Hemisphere polar ice is controversial. Here, we report proxy records of sea surface temperatures from multiple ocean localities and show that the high-latitude temperature decrease was substantial and heterogeneous. High-latitude (45 degrees to 70 degrees in both hemispheres) temperatures before the climate transition were ~20°C and cooled an average of ~5°C. Our results, combined with ocean and ice-sheet model simulations and benthic oxygen isotope records, indicate that Northern Hemisphere glaciation was not required to accommodate the magnitude of continental ice growth during this time.